


A Bunch of Punny Situtations

by abelrunner



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, F/F, Fluff and Angst, For Pacifist Mainly But For Genocide As well, Gen, Nonbinary Frisk, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-26 15:44:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5010481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abelrunner/pseuds/abelrunner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every timeline has its moments. Moments of joy and friendship and clarity. Moments of pain and grief and betrayal. Some of them stand out more than others.</p>
<p>Drabbles of varying lengths from varying timelines, but usually the happy timelines because my babies deserve to be happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Fresh:**

“My arm’s gonna fall off!” Undyne snarled, dragging the spoon through the tough dough. “This is way too hard to mix!”

Toriel peered over into the bowl and smiled slightly. “You put too much sugar in too quickly,” she said. “It has to be put in gradually, or else it becomes difficult to mix.”

Undyne glared down at the bowl before grinning a toothy grin. “Eh, we’re not good cooks, are we?” She asked, unabashed.

“If this were spaghetti, it would be another story!” Papyrus said confidently, trying to make balls of cookie dough with bone hands. Frisk reached past him and grabbed a small handful of chocolate chips. “Frisk! Stop eating the chocolate chips! We’re running low!” Frisk stared up, slightly wounded, mouth still full of chocolate, and looked at the group for support.

“Maybe he’s checking for freshness?” Sans suggested, grinning and grabbing a few chocolate chips for himself.

Papyrus gave him a look. “You already checked the first half of the bag for freshness!”

San snickered. “Oh yeah.”

**Talk:**

The kid didn’t talk much in the underground.

Fair enough. Surrounded by monsters, buried miles underground, trying to get home… not a lot of time for chatter. But for some reason, Sans had gotten the idea that this was the norm. That he was always a quiet kid.

They were above ground, in the sun and the fresh air, and the kid. Never. Shut. Up.

**Laugh:**

“Hey, Papyrus!” Frisk tapped the skeleton on the wrist bone and grinned up at him. “What do skeletons order at restaurants?”

“Sans, stop teaching this child your terrible jokes!” Papyrus snapped down the hall at the sound of Sans’ snicker.

“Spare ribs!” Frisk declared. Toriel’s hysterical laughter effectively drowned out Papyrus’ own involuntary snort. He glanced back towards the living room quickly, making sure that Sans hadn’t heard. When no cheerful chiding came into the kitchen, Papyrus turned to Frisk and whispered, “I will owe you a whole plate of spaghetti if you don’t tell my brother I laughed at that.” Frisk considered the offer, then whispered back, “Laughed at what?”

“I’m glad we understand each other.”

**Gravity:**

Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Papyrus had some of the same abilities that Sans had. To be fair, Papyrus didn’t use his abilities to quite the same devastating effect. Where Sans shifted the pull of gravity left, right, backwards, forwards, up and down, Papyrus just made things heavy, slow, sluggish.

“You’re cheating.”

“The Great Papyrus never cheats!”

“You’re cheating.”

“If you don’t stop, I’m going to get Miss Toriel and have her give you a talking to about lies!”

“And if you don’t stop cheating, I’m going to get Sans.”

“I’m not cheating!”

“Papyrus, it’s tag. You can’t use your gravity powers when we’re playing tag!”

**Reward: ******

Sans stood before the child, ketchup leaking out of shattered bones and staining his hoodie, and thought of Papyrus, and wondered if this was his reward.

\--

Sans sat next to Toriel, watching Papyrus get utterly creamed by Frisk and Alphys at Smash Bro while Undyne cheered like she was watching a wrestling match, and wondered if this was his reward.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I got excited.

**Compelling:**

Sans watched from the shadows of the trees nearby, magic ready at his fingertips. Ready to jump forward and lob the little freak into the river they tried anything.

Papyrus was… well, being Papyrus. Offering a second chance, guidance, a friend. Sans wasn’t sure if it was early enough for that. The trail of dust and fear behind the kid was enough to prove to him that it may be too late. But Papyrus probably wouldn’t think it was too late until the kid killed him.

Heck, maybe not even then.

Sans had never actually seen his brother die. He’d found the scarf, the pile of grayish snow, nothing else. This time, he’d stop it. This time, it’d be different.

The kid approached Papyrus, and Sans felt the tingle of magic rub against his fingers, against the inside of his sockets. Ready. Waiting.

The kid started laughing.

Not that dark, ugly chuckle that sometimes came to his memory. A regular, little kid laugh. A giggle that became a laugh that became a guffaw. Papyrus seemed confused.

“I was not joking, human!” He protested. “I will offer you guidance!” The kid only laughed harder until Papyrus petered off in frustration. After a while, the kid waved a hand out reassuringly.

“O-oh, no!” they said, still giggling. “I-it’s not you! Well, I mean, i-it is you, b-but…” They started laughing again. “What am I supposed to say to that?”

“Hopefully, ‘Thank you, Papyrus! I will be your friend and welcome your support!’” Papyrus replied. The kid was looking at him, grinning. But not that creepy, dead slasher smile that Sans would usually see at this point. It was broad and bright and genuine and… affectionate.

The kid gently chucked their weapon off to the side, into the snow, and held out their hands in amused surrender. “Thank you, Papyrus,” they said. “I will be your friend and welcome your support.”

For a second, Papyrus seemed like he wasn’t entirely sure how to react.

“You didn’t do a violence!” He said happily. The kid laughed again, and Papyrus chattered away happily, explaining how to get to the castle and confidently insisting that the king would be more than happy to help them.

Sans watched for a few more moments, the magic slowly ebbing away, before turning away and heading back to his post.

**Friendship:**

"What's a skeleton's favorite instrument?"

"I don't know. What?"

"A trombone!" She busted out laughing and if Sans felt is already broad grin grow even more.

"I have one!" She said after she'd collected herself. Sans leaned back against the ruin door and closed his eyes. 

"Hit me."

"Why did the sad ghost get into the elevator?"

"Dunno. Why?"

"It would lift his spirits!" They both laughed, her with abandon, him muffling the giggles into the sleeve of his hoodie. For some reason, he didn't want Papyrus to know about this. Not out of any conscious cruelty, but it was nice to have something uniquely his, only his. 

Plus, it would be kind of hard to talk his brother up if he was around. 

He grinned up at the dark ceiling of the cavern as the giggles died down and said, "Hey, did I ever tell you the one with the pirate and the lima bean?"

**Shipping:**

“There’s no way she’d get with him!” Undyne protested, lobbing the comic across the room in a fury. “That’s so stupid!”

“What is it?” Alphys asked, startled by the sudden violence. Undyne threw her hands into the air.

“This manga! The main character got with the stupid bad boy when clearly she belonged with her friend! I mean, honestly. Who writes this junk?” She glared at the sad little book where it sat on the floor, rumpled and sad. “And don’t even get me started on the battle uniforms. Frisk could beat them up with all the openings those stupid things have.” She shook her head in disgust and flopped back on the bed. She looked up at Alphys where she sat, working on equations.

“Wanna watch Neon Genesis Evangelion?” Alphys immediately slapped her laptop shut.

“Always.”

**Experiment:**

“I feel like this might be a bad idea.” Alphys said.

“Nonsense!” Papyrus chirped. “If Undyne can do it, I can do it!” Alphys and Frisk shared a look of mutual amusement and resignation. With a triumphant whoop, Papyrus leapt from the cliff. The scientist and the child peered down after him.

“He’s sinking?”

“He’s sinking.”

“I don’t know what I was expecting.”

**Mend:**

They all stared at the broken bone with no earthly idea what to do.

“Uh…” Undyne said. “Should we… get Sans or Toriel or something?”

“Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no…” Alphys muttered, wringing her hands.

“Does it… hurt?” Frisk asked softly, pale and shaky. Papyrus stared at his broken arm and shrugged.

“Not… exactly? It’s just never happened before!” He stopped and reconsidered. “Well, it’s happened before! But not completely off!”

“Sorry, Papyrus…” Undyne said awkwardly. Papyrus waved off the apology with the hand that was still attached.

“It’s not a big deal! It doesn’t hurt!”

“Maybe we should get Mom…” Frisk suggested, wondering if he should pick the broken half of Papyrus’ arm off of the ground. Somehow, all the fingers and wrist bones remained attached to the jagged, broken sections of forearm.

“Nah!” Undyne said, reclaiming her gusto with the reassurance that her friend wasn’t in pain. “We’ll just duct tape it back! Duct tape fixes everything, right, Alphys?” They all turned to the little scientist, who went vividly red and muttered, “Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no…”

\--

“Just fell off, huh?” Sans asked dryly as Toriel’s magic wove around the broken arm and knitted bone back together. Papyrus wouldn’t meet his eyes and Undyne kicked the ground awkwardly. “Duct tape, huh?” Frisk found something very interesting in the rafters and Alphys covered her face in her hands. “You’re all a bunch of dorks.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I love writing Sans a bit too much.
> 
> Includes some genocide run spoilers and some hints at a few theories I have.

**Adopt:**

“Everyone, this is Papyrus,” Sans announced. Papyrus waved cheerfully. A few in the group waved back. Most just stared in utter bafflement.

“What.” Verdana said flatly.

Sans shrugged. “He’s coming with.”

“Nice to meet you, Papyrus,” Gaster said cheerfully. “Just a quick question: _How on God’s green earth did you get here?_ ”

“He hitched.” Sans said, sitting down at the table and gesturing encouragingly for Papyrus to sit as well.

“How?!” Helvetica protested. “We’re traveling through time and space and I don’t recall pulling over!”

**Memory:**

“Sans, stop recording this! You’re being cruel!”

“Am not! The kid’ll thank me later.” Frisk gave him a confused look, their hands holding the ice packs up against their chipmunk cheeks.

“Man, kid, you look like you’re having a bad time.” Frisk groaned and leaned their head against the window as Papyrus drove the car back to the house, giving Sans disapproving looks that his brother resolved to cheerfully ignore for the sake of posterity.

“I had bad dreams…” they mumbled.

“Awww, bummer. Really?” Sans asked, trying to keep the phone steady. Frisk nodded miserably and for a moment, Sans wondered if maybe Papyrus was right. Before he could shrug and turn the phone off, though, Frisk whispered, “I killed you.”

Sans felt the magic grind at his left socket, felt memory push at the edge of his consciousness.

_It’s a beautiful day…_

Frisk flinched away, eyes wide, and whispered, “You looked like that.”

_The sun is shining… the birds are singing…_

“Looked like what?” Papyrus asked. “Sans, stop making faces at them! I can’t check what you’re doing when I’m driving!”

_On days like these… kids like you…_

“I’m sorry…” Frisk said. Sans shoved it all down with a vengeance, felt the magic burn away and the whisper of grief and rage and violence drift off. He put the phone down and forced a grin back at the kid.

“Forget about it, kiddo,” he said gently. “Different time.”

**Paperback:**

“Are you sure you want to read that?” Sans asked dubiously. “Papyrus had to hide it in the freezer, it scared him so bad. You can pick something else.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine. It’s not being read to me as a bedtime story after all.” Toriel gave him a look that was half amusement and half disapproval. Sans shrugged with a sheepish grin.

“Frisk wasn’t scared,” he said. Toriel rolled her eyes.

“Frisk is Frisk. Anyway, I expect to hear all about Little Women from them both.” Sans turned the book over in his hands with a certain lack of enthusiasm.

“Yeah. Looks great,” he mumbled.

“It’s a classic, Sans,” Toriel said. Then she added, “Apparently.”

**Work:**

A coffee shop closer to the college part of town was effectively the last place that Sans thought to find like-minded individuals.

“Bro, why are you sleeping in the bathroom?” Carlos, the obnoxiously young assistant manager asked him with a raised eyebrow. Sans sighed, accepting his inevitable unemployment. “The backroom’s way better. Mr. McCosta never goes back there and it’s got those massive bags of… damn, I don’t even know what they are but they’re comfy, bro.” Sans blinked up at him in astonishment and the tall, gangly college student laughed. “What, you think I was gonna turn you in, bro? Nah, that’d be a dick move. Come on, I don’t even wanna know what people get into in these stalls.”

**Nightmare:**

_On days like these…_

**_This is a terrible idea._ **

**_It is a revolutionary idea, Sans. Revolutionary._ **

_Kids like you…_

**_Are you trying to get us all killed?!_ **

**_I expected more from you, Sans, to be quite honest._ **

_red eyes stared out from the darkness, a smile glinted in the shadow like the edge of a knife_

**I am Chara.**

Sans woke with a strangled gasp. He gripped the sheets, staring into the darkness and gritting his teeth in a terrified grin.

“Well,” he whispered. “That’s a new one.”


End file.
